1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to data processing and, in particular, to remote meeting presentations in a network of data processing systems. Still more particularly, the present invention provides a method, apparatus, and program for efficiently distributing and remotely managing meeting presentations.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer systems have become commonplace in everyday life and in business. Interconnection among computer systems through networks and, in particular, the Internet has also become routine. As such, computer systems have become customary tools for communicating information and ideas.
Computer users employ applications, such as voice over Internet, text chat and instant messaging, video conferencing, and application sharing to communicate among parties over great distances, for business and pleasure. Application sharing, which can be used in an electronic meeting, is a data conferencing capability that lets two or more users interactively work on the same application at the same time. The application is loaded and running in only one machine; however, participants send keystrokes to the application and receive screen changes from the application.
In the prior art, meeting presentations occur by a meeting host acting as a server, sending screen shots at a high refresh rate to connected meeting participants. This requires a large amount of bandwidth and processing power by the host computer to transmit whole screens of display to multiple participants. Also, differences in color depth between the host and the remote computers often cause difficulties, because as each participant client attempts to present the screens of display, incompatibility with the color depth or display resolution of the host may result in errors or poorly rendered screens. Other applications, such as NetMeeting® from Microsoft Corporation and SameTime® from IBM Corporation, combine various aspects of text messaging, video conferencing, and application sharing.
Remote meeting presentations via screen sharing software may be problematic. A meeting host computer, which is commonly a laptop or other mobile computing device, must be able to handle the load of multiple remote connections. Furthermore, the differences in screen resolution, color depth, and the like among the host and the participants may cause distractions in meeting environments. For example, when there are excessive transmission delays or the presentation fails to display entirely, the meeting participants may be forced to cure connection problems or switch to off-line methods of distributed meeting presentations.